Pinned topicIs anyone else blocked due to Microsoft incomplete specs?

Sorry if this is not the right forum. I looked down the list and this one seemed to be the best match.

I have several strategic projects in which I need access to various binary files created by Microsoft Office. I need to access these files on Linux, other *nix and possible mainframe. Microsoft took a step in the right direction to publish the open specs for DOC, XLT and PPT files under their open spec 'promise'. But they are intentionally choosing to leave out other important file formats and requiring the installation of Microsoft Office. Like PST, OST, MDB and I could name a few more. I would really like some pressure put on them to do what they committed to do and release specs for these file formats. Is anyone else up against a brick wall? Converting files is not possible. Requiring Microsoft product to be installed is simply lock in and not possible. See my forum threads below. I would think these would also be key pieces to round out the Open Office suite of programs. And perhaps others have the same challenges.

Re: Is anyone else blocked due to Microsoft incomplete specs?

‏2009-06-10T01:57:14Z

This is the accepted answer.
This is the accepted answer.

I am sure that others have this problem, but it's outside the scope of this forum. We deal with IBM software here. To the extent that products like OpenOffice.org or IBM symphony can process some Microsoft Office formats, you may have a partial solution, but even these products suffer from some lack of fidelity to the original Microsoft formats and some problems with document interchange. You may also be interested in the Wikipedia article on OpenDocument adoption and many discussions on Groklaw, particularly the ODF-OOXML Main Page.